12may04

Who Ordered 'Shock and Awe'?

To what extent have the policies of the Bush administration -
and the values and attitudes that have characterized the conduct
of the so-called war against terror - contributed to a state of
mind and morale in the American military that opened the way to
the torture, abuse and, in some cases, apparent murder of
prisoners in Iraq?

Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration
displayed hostility toward international law and treaty
obligations that it considered as limits on U.S. national
sovereignty or as obstacles to American national interest.

In the Afghanistan war it summarily shipped prisoners outside of
the country, notably to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without serious
examination of their cases, and in disregard of Geneva norms
concerning prisoners taken in war.

U.S. Army regulations on dealing with prisoners of war were
bypassed, since these people were by presidential definition
"enemy combatants," not prisoners of war.

Ordinary American norms of justice, requiring timely presentation
of charges, legal representation and impartial adjudication, were
ignored then and continue to be ignored.

While the administration's disregard for international, military
and constitutional law was widely acknowledged at the time, there
was little protest in the American press, and no effective
challenge from Democratic Party leaders. There is a bipartisan
responsibility for what has happened.

Some Afghan and other "war against terror" prisoners were
transferred to third countries. Reporters were informed - with a
smile and a wink - that this was because they could be tortured
there. Again there was negligible reaction in U.S. press and
political circles.

In Afghanistan, and subsequently in Iraq, an obvious reason for
the involvement of civilian "contract employees" in intelligence
and interrogations has been that they are not subject to military
discipline, and responsibility for them and what they do can be
"plausibly denied" by U.S. officials.

All this is consistent with an attitude toward violence
characteristic of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration,
who have for years insisted that history is made through violence,
and that in the national cause a governing elite has the right to
mislead the public in order to achieve goals that the leaders
alone are in a position to understand.

This lies behind the administration's pressure for violent action
to "change regimes" and intimidate so-called rogue nations,
constantly described - however implausibly - by the president and
vice president as threatening mass destruction attacks on the
United States, jeopardizing national survival. Iraq had to be
attacked before it was "too late."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly says that those who
oppose the United States in Iraq and elsewhere have to be killed.
He does not speak in terms of defeating them, much less of
negotiating with them, as the British do in southern Iraq.

Dehumanizing language has deliberately been employed to describe
all those who oppose the United States. The cumulative effect of
this has conveyed to American troops that international and
national norms of lawful conduct have been suspended or crucially
limited in the war against terror.

It can be argued that the Bush administration created a state of
expectation, mode of conduct, hostility to traditional norms of
military behavior, and attitude toward Iraqi, Afghan and other
Islamic "terrorists," that opened the way to atrocities.

Finally, there is a problem with U.S. military doctrine. Offensive
operations are intended to "shock and awe" opponents through
massive use of violence, even when civilians are potential
victims, as in the armored column assault that led the attack on
Baghdad a year ago.

Additionally, American military doctrine of "force protection"
mandates killing civilians perceived as being in any way
threatening to American forces. This requires American soldiers to
treat all Iraqis as potential enemies, and their lives as being of
lesser worth than American lives.

A British officer recently complained to The Daily Telegraph in
London - a pro-American newspaper - that Americans "don't see the
Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen
- subhuman, a term applied by the Nazis to Jews and Gypsies.

"They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life the way we
are. Their attitude toward the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful ... As
far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is
out to kill them."

But that is what they have been trained to think. One result of
that training was what happened in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Young military reservists from small American towns do not
spontaneously torture, humiliate, sexually abuse and obscenely
mock powerless prisoners unless people in authority over them have
ordered or encouraged them to do so.

An American friend who works in Saudi Arabia recently e-mailed me
to say "it's all over with those pro-American Arabs who until now
have credited Washington with good intentions in Iraq. Photographs
of American women soldiers sexually taunting and abusing naked and
bound Arab men says to them that the United States is a totally
depraved society."

But who debauched these young American men and women soldiers? I
would argue that the moral debauchery came down the chain of
command from Washington.

[Source: By William Pfaff, The International Herald Tribune, Paris, 12May04]

This document has been published on 21May04 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
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